Rant Archive (May 1998)

I’ve been hearing lots of debate over the ethics of Internet piracy. The whole discussion makes my blood boil.

I’ve had my band together for ten years, and have been building a following on a grass roots level. Every time I’ve tried to get the attention of the “big boys” I get one of these types of responses:

-Instrumental music doesn’t sell

-If you could write lyrics to those songs, there might be some potential (we tried it, and BOYYY did it ever come across as stupid….).

-You guys are “too good.” The trend these days is that the musicians we record can’t really play.

-You guys are too old

-If you are willing to let us make all the money while you do all the work, we can talk.

-Your music doesn’t fit any category. If you can make it sound like the rest of the stuff we sell, we’ll know what “bin” to put you in.

-You music doesn’t sound like our label. If you can make your music change to fit our image, maybe we can do something (These same people tell the public they let their artists have free reign….).

It’s only partly true that “the big boys” have the capacity to do effective internet “piracy” A guy like me is clever enough to do it too. But I won’t. Why? Because I’m too focused on making our own stuff marketable.

These are the simple facts:

-The web doesn’t make a distinction between David and Goliath. It doesn’t care.

-That makes David every bit as accessible as Goliath

-If David is resourceful enough, he can bring forth good music without Goliath’s help

-If David is successful financially he doesn’t need Goliath’s help at all.

When “Don’t Look So Serious” was released, it sold 17,000 copies worldwide. Total revenues paid to me: $3,850 (as per “creative accounting” from the label)

If we do it ourselves, we’ll be able to make enough money at it to sustain ourselves and bring the music to our fans our own way; The way that has gotten us the kind of fan loyalty few bands enjoy.

I think “they” are more concerned about loss of market share than piracy.